Joseph Akinfenwa Donus is a Nigerian contemporary R&B singer who goes by the stage name, Joeboy. He has written his name in the Nigerian music history book although still a rising star. While Joeboy is still considered new to the music industry, his mastery of mixing Afro-pop and R&B has gained him lots of fans.
Joeboy has, since his rise to stardom, thrilled both fans and neutrals with scintillating sounds from his seemingly indispensable bank of ‘good songs’. Thus, while considering Joeboy’s biography, we will highlight the songs that announced him.
However, first, we give a brief breakdown of important facts about Joeboy. See a list of every vital information you should have about Joeboy. You may choose between either watching the video or reading the top 10 facts about the amazing Joeboy.
10 facts about Joeboy that everyone should know
- Joeboy’s real name is Joseph Akinfenwa Donus and he is a Nigerian from the Yoruba tribe.
- Joseph Akinfenwa Donus who is popularly called Joeboy was born on 21st May 1997. He is 23 years old on his birthday this May 2020.
- Joeboy was influenced by his father who played church keyboard and his brother who was a member of the choir.
- Joeboy is a student of Human Resource at the popular University of Lagos.
- The talented artiste started making music at the age of 17.
- Joeboy first became popular after his cover of Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You got large listenership worldwide which brought him to the attention of Mr Eazi.
- He was the first artiste to receive sponsorship from Mr Eazi under the philanthropic initiative, emPawa Africa.
- Joeboy mentions that he recorded his major hit track, Baby, under 45 minutes.
- He was the winner of the 2020 Soundcity MVP award for Best Pop artiste.
- Joseph Akinfenwa Donus who many know by his stage name, Joeboy, released his first EP, Love & Light in November 2019. The album contains five hit songs and features Mayorkun in one of the tracks.
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Joeboy Biography: Early life
Joeboy’s full name is Joseph Akinfenwa Donus and he was born on 21st May 1997 to a very religious family. According to sources, his father played the keyboard in the church while his elder brother was a member of the choir.
Joseph Akinfenwa attended primary and secondary school in Lagos State. During his secondary school days, his peers nicknamed him ‘Joeboy’. This is likely the short form of his first name Joseph and the addition of ‘boy’ to it. The name grew with him.
After he completed secondary school, he went on to study Human Resources at the University of Lagos, popularly known as Unilag. The university is one of five first-generation universities in Nigeria and was founded in 1962. Joeboy s still a student of the university and s juggling music with his academic studies.
However, before entering university, his love for music had already matured. It was set in motion by some factors that we will point out in the next section.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B94zDPEnViV/
Is Joeboy Ghanaian?
No, he is not a Ghanaian. Joeboy is a Nigerian and he is from the Yoruba tribe. Many people mistake him for a Ghanaian because he mixes some sounds from the country with his songs. Joeboy has addressed this saying he wants his song to sound as African as possible. We will shed more light on this in the section about his personal life.
Joeboy Biography: Early career
As we already disclosed, Joeboy had early music influences in the person of his father and elder brother. However, another major motivator was that his elder brother gave him the opportunity to meet with big Nigerian artistes at an early age.
He got to be in the studio with 9ice and ID Cabasa, who were some early pioneers of street Afro-pop in Nigeria. This likely showed him his career path early in life. According to him, he has been making music since he was 17 years old. Joeboy recorded a less known song titled “Gbeseyin” at around that time.
However, according to Joeboy, his career officially kicked off in 2017. At that time, he was 20 years old and had released a cover of Ed Sheeran’s song – Shape of You. The song garnered huge responses that set the singer on the right track. You can listen to one of the earliest original versions we found online here:
This cover also caught the attention of renowned Nigerian singer Mr Eazi, who pushed the Banku music narrative into mainstream music.
Mr Eazi signs Joeboy
Joeboy reveals in an interview with Pulse that when he did the Shape of You cover, he had only known of the song the previous day. He said, back then he listened to rap music than any other genre.
However, Mr Eazi got to hear of the song via an Instagram friend who Joeboy said he didn’t know at that time. He says:
“She didn’t know me, but she said she was going to send it to a bunch of artists. She sent it to Wizkid and so forth.”
Then, he revealed that while he was preparing for exams, he discovered that Mr Eazi had liked the video with his verified account. He also got a message that included the artiste’s phone number and a request to call Mr Eazi.
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That was how Joeboy met Mr Eazi. The duo started working together after Mr Eazi agreed to mentor him, giving him the needed boost. Joeboy was the first artist to be signed under Mr Eazi’s emPawa Africa initiative.
Joeboy biography: Music career
Working with Mr Eazi, Joeboy began to officially release songs. The first song he dropped was Realest with contribution from Triple N. The song dropped in December 2017 and had a mixture of trap and R&B ingredients.
He also released Mind before collaborating with Mr Eazi himself in 2018 to release Faaji. Faaji was one of the first songs released under the emPawa Africa project, founded by Mr Eazi.
It was after Faaji dropped that Joeboy became much more experimental with his sound. This was what led to the production of Baby, Joeboy’s biggest hit to date.
Baby
According to Joeboy, he was scheduled for his 2019 debut with a Ghanian artiste named KiDi. KiDi is a Ghanaian highlife and Afrobeats singer-songwriter.
However, while the production was still on for his collaboration, he received a beat from BeatByKO, who was his official producer at the time. Dara The Boy had created the beat and was looking for an artiste that would do justice to it.
According to Joeboy, it took him about 45 minutes to record Baby. He said he himself had felt the hook he used was perfect but he sent it to Mr Eazi first. Eazi himself liked the song and previewed it on his Instagram Story and Twitter.
After people showed initial love for the song, Joeboy released it as an official single on 1st March 2019. He also dropped a visualiser, on YouTube, along with the single. Currently, the visualiser has over 26 million views on the video-sharing website.
Meanwhile, an official video for Baby was also published on YouTube in May 2019, which currently has over six million views on YouTube, less than a quarter of the visualiser version.
Some people have commented that the visualiser visual was better than that of the video. You can check both out to compare for yourself as we’ve embedded them in the article.
https://youtu.be/pp6xej5xWfs
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The song took Joeboy to the 2020 Soundcity MVP Awards under the Song of the Year category. While he lost out on that contest, he won the award for Best Pop artiste among many other nominations.
Beginning
In August 2019, Joeboy served his listeners with another top tier song. The song titled Beginning also panders to the love tune that Baby had established. Beginning also sat well with music enthusiasts and helped further cement the artiste’s name as one who had come to stay and not a one time wonder.
Joeboy Love & Light EP and latest songs
In November 2019, Joeboy released his first major project, the Love & Light EP. It featured his two hit singles Baby and Beginning. It also served us the irresistible earworm, Don’t Call Me Back. There are five songs on the amazing project and the other two are titled All For You and Blessings.
Don’t Call Me Back
In collaboration with Mayourkun, Joeboy delivered exceptionally on the track Don’t Call Me back. It again tells a story of love, this time, about one that had gone sour.
